1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic imaging apparatus and a system for specifying, or identifying, individual using the electronic imaging apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been proposed electronic imaging apparatuses, such as digital cameras, which extract a predetermined frame from the moving image data acquired in a continuous image shooting and detect an area where the face of a person or the like (face area) locates in the extracted frame. Those electronic imaging apparatuses perform AF (Auto Focusing) and AE (Auto Exposure) on the detected face area.
A technique of specifying an individual (individual verification) using a face-area detecting technique is proposed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-192378. In the publication, first, a face area is detected to specify an individual from image data input from a plurality of imaging parts. Then, the feature value of a face part, such as an eye or the nose in the detected face area, is detected, and the detected feature value of the face is collated with information registered in a predetermined database to specify the individual.
Conventionally, the detection of a face area and the detection of the feature value of the detected face area are executed based on the same image data. For executing face area detection and feature value detection in moving image data, for example, a predetermined frame of the moving image data is extracted and then both the face area detection and feature value detection are executed.